Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contexts

by Dias; Patrick

• ISBN13: 9780805821475
• ISBN10: 0805821473
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contextsoffers a unique examination of writing as it is applied and used in academic and workplace settings. Based on a 7-year multi-site comparative study of writing in different university courses and matched workplaces, this volume presents new perspectives on how writing functions within the activities of various disciplines: law and public administration courses and government institutions; management courses and financial institutions; social-work courses and social-work agencies; and architecture courses and architecture practice. Using detailed ethnography, the authors make comparisons between the two types of settings through an understanding of how writing is operative within the particularities of these settings. Although the research was initially established to further understanding of the relationships between writing in academic and workplace settings, it has evolved to examining writing as it is embedded in both types of settings--where social relationships, available tools, and historical, cultural, temporal, and physical location are all implicated in complex ways in the decisions people make as writers. Readers of this volume will discover that the uniqueness of each setting makes salient different aspects of writers and writing, resulting in complex, and potentially unsettling implications for writing theory and the teaching of writing.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction	vii
Preface	xi
I Introduction	1	(42)
Introduction: Researching Writing at School and at Work	3	(14)
Situating Writing	17	(26)
II University Writing	43	(70)
The Social Motive of University Writing	47	(18)
Complications and Tensions	65	(17)
Writing and the Formation of the Architect	82	(31)
III Workplace Writing	113	(70)
The Complexity of Social Motive in Workplace Writing	117	(18)
Distributed Cognition at Work	135	(16)
From Words to Bricks: Writing in an Architectural Practice	151	(32)
IV Transitions	183	(53)
Students and Workers Learning	185	(16)
Virtual Realities: Transitions From University to Workplace Writing	201	(21)
Contexts for Writing: University and Work Compared	222	(14)
References	236	(10)
Author Index	246	(3)
Subject Index	249